December 31, 2006

Heartbreaking screwup. Don’t do this :-(

So I have this board. It’s like, 9″x23″. I need to cut it to two boards, each 9″x10 5/8″. That’s *almost* in half. So, what I did is measured out the 10 5/8, drew a line, lined up the crosscut, and ran it across the table saw. Sounds simple, but there’s a big screwup in what I just said. Do you know what it is?

I didn’t mark the “waste” side of the cut. As a result, I made an absolutely *perfect* cut…. on the wrong side of the line. I’m exactly 1/8″ shy.

Always mark the waste side of your cut. What makes this heartbreaking is that instead of having one cut left to make (on the same board – I need two 10 5/8″ pieces), I now have to do a glue-up of *another* set of 1/2″x6″ boards, trim it so that the resulting 9″ board has the glued seam in the middle, square it up, and cut my 10 5/8″ piece. It causes more waste as well.